My student got lost...

[Mafoo]

Sure, but this was a training scenario designed to encourage the student to use a specific troubleshooting methodology. GPS had no place in this specific training scenario, and tends to cause the pilot to fixate. I know because I use Foreflight and / or Naviator on every flight, and if it told me to head south when I wanted to go North I can see myself doing just that If you want to teach your student to periodically check the DG, this was a wonderfully constructed scenario and I'm so glad my CFI didn't do that to me because I would probably still be flying.

This was a fun story and interesting thread.

Yea, as I have said half a dozen times, I like the setup. What I took issue with, was claiming it's real world, and when I discover am lost, have an electrical problem, no GPS signal in any of my stand along GPS's, and one of my vacuum instruments was off more then it should have been (indicating another posible issue behind the panel), that landing meant Jesse feels I made a poor choice.

If he had said "I got you lost, find out where you are without GPS", then I would have done so, without issue.

That's not the same thing.

 

[ChrisK]

Oh I know. I'm more on your side with the GPS thing. I just think that a lot of folks (myself included) end up arguing about GPS vs VOR vs pilotage / DR because ..... we like to argue.

 

[wabower]

On many trainers, the DG will precess at rather quickly. If I see it happening without correction to compass, I slip a small black draw-string bag over the compass. If student notices, I just tell him that I drank all the whiskey and the compass is unreliable.

 

[DeeG]

Sigh...

No one I guess is understanding my position. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH NAVIGATION!!!!

How many times, and how many ways can I say it?

Things in my plane are breaking. I don't care if I know where I am or not... I am landing.

No. Your second post in this thread was a response to Jesse when you asked him if he would have failed all three GPS's. Jesse stated that: "The whole GPS constellation was just knocked off-line by some silly software bug a government programmer made."

Your response to him was: "Then I would have found the closest strip of runway, and landed. I DO NOT want to be in the air when GPS goes out."

Nothing in your plane was breaking. If you have to land because none of your GPS's are working, you have some serious problems.

 

[Tom-D]

On many trainers, the DG will precess at rather quickly. If I see it happening without correction to compass, I slip a small black draw-string bag over the compass. If student notices, I just tell him that I drank all the whiskey and the compass is unreliable.

If I were your student I would land and call 911, because you are going to need treatment very soon.

It ain't whiskey.

 

[Tom-D]

Nothing in your plane was breaking. If you have to land because none of your GPS's are working, you have some serious problems.

What she said..

 

[zaitcev]

Again, we are talking real world. It's been over 5 years since I have stepped out of my home, and been anywhere without a GPS on me.

It's not the real world. It's just your small bubble. And as I mentioned, and you chose to ignore, GPS has availability issues in the real world.

 

[EppyGA]

I have trained without GPS. This has nothing to do with Navigation.

The Bad: I was so overwhelmed, I forgot to check the time when I took off, and didn't use my navigational markers correctly. I navigated the entire way with GPS. One of my marks was a railroad line that I never saw. Navigation was really bad. I didn't worry to much, because I had an iPad, and knew I was always south west of the airport.

Isn't this from your x-country?

 

[wabower]

You and I both know that, but the student just knows it's a whiskey compass. Why ruin it for him?

If I were your student I would land and call 911, because you are going to need treatment very soon.

It ain't whiskey.

 

[MAKG1]

Sigh...

No one I guess is understanding my position. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH NAVIGATION!!!!

How many times, and how many ways can I say it?

Things in my plane are breaking. I don't care if I know where I am or not... I am landing.

That's because you're wrong here.

Your GPSs (all of them) can fail for reasons in orbit or due to transmitters hundreds of miles away. Your DG can be wrong just because they do that normally in the absence of corrections. The weather can be a little worse than forecast (it doesn't take much). Nothing in your aircraft is broken, you're not in IMC, you have plenty of fuel, but you're lost.

If your only option under that circumstance is to make a precautionary landing, you're not ready for a checkride.

To the original scenario, the primary error the student made was not correcting the DG for over an hour. If the student had done that, the problem would have been discovered much earlier, and the solution would have been much easier. I'll bet that mistake never happens again.

I mentioned this earlier in the thread, but I've seen an HSI fail in flight. As it was slaved to a GPS, it wasn't clear at the time whether the GPS was at fault or the problem was mechanical (it appeared later to be the latter). Did I make a precautionary landing? Neither GPS nor DG is required for VFR flight, and weather conditions were very good. So, no. I navigated home through Class C airspace, with flight following, using the magnetic compass and pilotage. With the one VOR receiver as a backup. Not even a "pan-pan-pan." I squawked it after landing, with "medium" severity, as that makes the aircraft unairworthy for IFR, but otherwise usable.

 

[flyingmoose]

The Bad: I was so overwhelmed, I forgot to check the time when I took off, and didn't use my navigational markers correctly. I navigated the entire way with GPS. One of my marks was a railroad line that I never saw. Navigation was really bad. I didn't worry to much, because I had an iPad, and knew I was always south west of the airport.

Isn't this from your x-country?

That about sums it up right there.

 

[Mafoo]

Nothing in your plane was breaking. If you have to land because none of your GPS's are working, you have some serious problems.

I landed, because none of the GPS's in the entire world are working, and I don't wish to be in the air when that event happens.

It has nothing to do with my ability to navigate without GPS.

 

[Mafoo]

Isn't this from your x-country?

Notice the "The bad" on front of that sentence?

I realize using my GPS for that flight was bad. I have had flights after that, that I have not hooked up my GPS.

I guess you are all right. I will throw away every GPS I have, and never use them again. They are stupid and kill people.

Let's start a petition to have them outlawed. I have no idea why anyone would have invited the evil thing in the first place.

 

[jesse]

FWIW my Flybaby has no DG and has a compass that well, is WW2 surplus and a bit interesting. It most certainly does not have a GPS because it also does not have an engine driven electrical system.

I generally use my iPhone with Foreflight as my GPS but there have been several times on cross countries that I have dropped GPS signal on my iPhone and iPad for 30 minutes or more. Why the hell it happens I don't know, honestly don't care, because I'm perfectly ok contiuining on without it. No biggie.

I've obserbed loss of GPS signal on iPad and iPhones many times on cross countries. I've also seen GPS errors on an iPad running Foreflight that were gross (more than 10 miles). If you think your mobile phone is always going to work you'll be in for a hell surprise.

If one must land because their GPS quit they're essentially saying that the GPS is nessesary for flight and without it it's an emergency. If that's the case you need more training.

How many hours of flight time do you have Mafoo? I seem to recall reading something recently that was on the lines of under 30 hours. You realize your arguing the necessity of GPS with people with thousands of hours? I think you'll look back at this in a few years and laugh at what you wrote.

 

[Mafoo]

It's not the real world. It's just your small bubble. And as I mentioned, and you chose to ignore, GPS has availability issues in the real world.

In the real world, you probably kind of know where you are when the GPS goes out.

In this case, the student was lost for 30 minutes, ad then the GPS went out.

So in your case, in all the places where you know the GPS is going to go out, are you saying you would rather wonder around those areas until you figure out where you are, or first create a safe environment?

Landing is the ultra safe thing to do. I chose it not because I could not do the other things suggested of me, or that I could not have done what his student did.

My biggest issue I have with this thread, is calling the safe thing the wrong thing. Yes, I could fly around after my CFI got me lost and stuff in my plane breaks. I personally, chose not to. I will climb, look to see if I can quickly figure out where I am, call flight following or use a GPS, and if none of that works (assuming VOR is out, like this student did), I chose to land at the first uncontrolled airport I find, and figure out where I am on the ground.

I am not going to change my mind.

 

[MAKG1]

I landed, because none of the GPS's in the entire world are working, and I don't wish to be in the air when that event happens.

It has nothing to do with my ability to navigate without GPS.

Why not? "See and avoid" has nothing to do with GPS.

A GPS outage is far short of Armageddon. It happens on a weekly basis somewhere in the West. Read your NOTAMs.

 

[jesse]

In the real world, you probably kind of know where you are when the GPS goes out.

In this case, the student was lost for 30 minutes, ad then the GPS went out.

So in your case, in all the places where you know the GPS is going to go out, are you saying you would rather wonder around those areas until you figure out where you are, or first create a safe environment?

Landing is the ultra safe thing to do. I chose it not because I could not do the other things suggested of me, or that I could not have done what his student did.

My biggest issue I have with this thread, is calling the safe thing the wrong thing. Yes, I could fly around after my CFI got me lost and stuff in my plane breaks. I personally, chose not to. I will climb, look to see if I can quickly figure out where I am, call flight following or use a GPS, and if none of that works (assuming VOR is out, like this student did), I chose to land at the first uncontrolled airport I find, and figure out where I am on the ground.

I am not going to change my mind.

Landing at an unfamiliar airport when you don't even know what airport it is and you just see it and land is not safe and can result in certificate action taken against you. That is something you see in an emergency. If your justification for an emergency is a GPS failure then you'll be looking at a 709 ride on navigation when you explain that.

Do you not understand that you're expected to be able to perform to your certificate level? Do you know what the PTS tasks are for the certificate you're working on?

If you cannot operate without a GPS then you are not ready to be a private pilot. If you happen to slip past a DPE in that state then that's just too bad. The day you break regulations and land at an airport with an airshow in progress simply because you lost GPS signal will result in the FAA re-evaluating whether or not you should be a private pilot.

Being able to navigate without a GPS is not an option if you want to be a FAA certificated private pilot.

 

[Mafoo]

How many hours of flight time do you have Mafoo? I seem to recall reading something recently that was on the lines of under 30 hours. You realize your arguing the necessity of GPS with people with thousands of hours? I think you'll look back at this in a few years and laugh at what you wrote.

No, I am not arguing the use of GPS. So let me ask you this.

If your flying, and all the sudden your 430 went out in your plane. Then you check your iPhone and iPad, and get nothing. Is all you are going to think is you lost GPS?

The reason those devices stopped working is of no concern?

My reasoning for landing has nothing to with if I could get into your flybaby, and get from point A to point B by using pilotage and dead reckoning.

 

[MAKG1]

In the real world, you probably kind of know where you are when the GPS goes out.

Not if the "outage" was a wrong answer, and it got you lost. This isn't likely with RAIM, but it is with a toy.

 

[VanDy]

Mafoo,
just curious, what type of aircraft is your time in? Sorry if ive missed it in another thread.

 

[Mafoo]

Being able to navigate without a GPS is not an option if you want to be a FAA certificated private pilot.

So your saying, no time durring my checkride, no matter what is done to me, is turning on my iPhone to take a look acceptable?

Let's say he says: You just went above the clouds, you can't see anything below, all your electrical systems fail, and your vacuum instruments become unreliable.

You are telling me in that situation, if you had an iPhone or Android phone, your not going to look at it?

 

[Mafoo]

Mafoo,
just curious, what type of aircraft is your time in? Sorry if ive missed it in another thread.

I am a student with 24 hours. my time is in a C150, and a C172. My solo XC was in a C172.

 

[Mafoo]

If you cannot operate without a GPS then you are not ready to be a private pilot. If you happen to slip past a DPE in that state then that's just too bad. The day you break regulations and land at an airport with an airshow in progress simply because you lost GPS signal will result in the FAA re-evaluating whether or not you should be a private pilot.

How about the guy who is lost because he feels GPS is "to easy" and ends up in the air show?

 

[MAKG1]

The reason those devices stopped working is of no concern?

That's right. Aviate, navigate, communicate.

If my mobile phone went out, it's not because of any problem in my aircraft that affects its airworthiness (it may be a bad antenna, perhaps). It certainly does not point to an electrical problem. This is not an emergency or an urgent situation. It's an annoyance, no more.

I might ask Center if they knew of an outage. But probably not, because it really doesn't matter. GPS is out. Use something else.

A much more likely scenario is that your two toys give you different answers, not no answer at all, and your 430 pukes a RAIM alert. There is nothing wrong with your aircraft under this scenario. It may mean one of the satellites went down unexpectedly near minimum coverage. Not an emergency.

 

[flyingmoose]

In the real world, you probably kind of know where you are when the GPS goes out.

I can say that this is also not always true. If you doing a 4 hour leg from point a to point b eating your crackers and sightseeing while just following the "Pink" line. Unless you have a map out cross checking your position then you might be surprised when it goes out and the only thing you know is "your in Tennessee somewhere!" Point is listen to Jesse, he is giving you good advice. And if you don't want to change your mind right now that's ok too. But you will later on.

 

[MAKG1]

So your saying, no time durring my checkride, no matter what is done to me, is turning on my iPhone to take a look acceptable?

Let's say he says: You just went above the clouds, you can't see anything below, all your electrical systems fail, and your vacuum instruments become unreliable.

You are telling me in that situation, if you had an iPhone or Android phone, your not going to look at it?

More than likely, your DPE will say something like "your battery is dead" and fail the iPhone.

None of those failures affect the magnetic compass.

 

[VanDy]

I am a student with 24 hours. my time is in a C150, and a C172. My solo XC was in a C172.

I think a lot of this is all a matter of perspective. We can all go blue in the face discussing this for another 20 pages, which might happen pretty quick...

My final post on the subject will be that if you ever come across the oppurtunity to get some dual in Cub, DO IT!! just do a nice flight with an instructor using a sectional while flying low and slow. You just might enjoy it and get a little different perspective on all the electronics. In my opinion there is something to be said for the simpler days and that kind of flying.

or i could be way of in left field, ymmv

 

[Mafoo]

A much more likely scenario is that your two toys give you different answers, not no answer at all, and your 430 pukes a RAIM alert. There is nothing wrong with your aircraft under this scenario. It may mean one of the satellites went down unexpectedly near minimum coverage. Not an emergency.

on the 430, I was not talking about an inaccurate position. I was talking the screen goes black. You lost your com1, nav1, and GPS.

Being the student thought Nav was out, I suspect this is how he took it (as did I).

 

[jesse]

So your saying, no time durring my checkride, no matter what is done to me, is turning on my iPhone to take a look acceptable?

Let's say he says: You just went above the clouds, you can't see anything below, all your electrical systems fail, and your vacuum instruments become unreliable.

You are telling me in that situation, if you had an iPhone or Android phone, your not going to look at it?

When the examiner is evaluating your ability to use dead reckoning and pilotage he can most certainly tell you that you can not use a GPS period. If you can't do those tasks without a GPS he can fail you for that. It doesn't matter that you have 45 GPS systems on board.

If you do not feel you can navigate on a several hundred mile cross country without a GPS of any type then you need additional cross country training and you are not ready for a private checkride.

There is absolutely no way I would endorse a student for a check-ride or a cross country for that matter if they were telling me the things you've been writing in this thread.

 

[murphey]

Is your Brain broken? NOPE!

How about:

Climb.
Use Eyeball to find a road and a town....you're VFR, remember...or the Connecticut River, or Mt. Washington, or Squaw, or Lake Winnepesaukee, or, oh nevermind. Where you live, you have visual landmarks up the wazoo.

Get out a sectional, identify the town by the water-tower if you have to.

Or you can do the "blonde" thing on 121.5 "OMG OMG OMG I'm lost help help...". I've heard that, too.


Why everyone knows a New Hampsha' native is nevah lost.....!

One of the joys living out here in Colorado. If we can see the mountains, we're rarely lost. If we can't see the mountains, we're probably well on our way to crashing into one of the mountains.

As I explained to friends from the east coast traveling Denver to ABQ for the balloon festival - if the mountains are not out your right window, you're either lost or in serious trouble.

 

[denverpilot]

However if the point was to put me in a real world situation, and have to use a real world solution, it's a discredited exercise, if all the real world information I will always have available to me is voided (like knowing none of my GPS's work).

Nothing in the training environment is 100% real-world. It's a stress inducer, not a perfect scenario.

IR students and instructors aren't out there really running into terrain just to see how CFIT feels. LOL.

And Matthew, great comment. I think someone else recommended slowing down. However if flying around until you figure out where you are is the only acceptable solution, I am not sure how much advantage there is to slowing down.

Look at fuel burn numbers carefully vs. distance covered.

When/if lost, covering MORE ground usually isn't smart, but staying aloft longer may be. Going faster just changes what you're seeing out the window more.

 

[MAKG1]

I am a student with 24 hours. my time is in a C150, and a C172. My solo XC was in a C172.

With that kind of time, you may have never seen a failure in flight. It will happen, probably soon, and it's important to distinguish the important stuff from the nonimportant.

I've seen an AI "hang up" indicating a 10 deg right bank. I've seen fuel gauges oscillating over 10 gallons in a 20 gallon tank. I've seen DME that can't receive a station 10 miles away. I've seen a nav/comm display go out, accompanied by a lot of static. I've seen the PTT switch come loose! All this in 160 hours. None of it is a land-the-plane-now emergency.

 

[Mafoo]

I think a lot of this is all a matter of perspective. We can all go blue in the face discussing this for another 20 pages, which might happen pretty quick...

My final post on the subject will be that if you ever come across the oppurtunity to get some dual in Cub, DO IT!! just do a nice flight with an instructor using a sectional while flying low and slow. You just might enjoy it and get a little different perspective on all the electronics. In my opinion there is something to be said for the simpler days and that kind of flying.

or i could be way of in left field, ymmv

I like flying by looking out the window, and using my map. I will hook the iPad up to the Yoke, and turn off the plane in settings, just to have the sectional and not need to deal with paper (I have a paper chart with me as well).

The issue is not that I need GPS. The issue is I am lost going off course for an unknown about of time without knowing what I flew over, managed to get myself into some place where GPS doesn't work (often times, not a place you should be), lost power to Com1, Nav1, and my Panel GPS, have an instrument that is acting up (I realize I can now use the compase solely), and am figuring out what I should do.

I stated my decisions would be (in this order):

Climb and see if I can figure out where I am.
Check the radio frequencies to see if that helps (might not in the midwest, but does here in NH).
Call flight services, and see if they can find me.

If none of those work, I have two options. Fly around until I figure out where I am, or land my plane.

I chose land. That seems to be the wrong answer. I am still not convinced why.

I know durring my XC, that I have had to worry about helipads over hospitals, in the trees, that tend to pop out. I have been diverted by flight following because of jumpers. We have areas to avoid because of a high volume of glider traffic.

I would not want to inadvertently fly into any of that. I would find a small airport, fly over it above 3000 AGL (so I am not in there airspace if it's towered), look down and see if I see a tower, or traffic while I scan the radio, and if it's clear, land.

Once on the ground, I can take all the time in the world to plan the next part of my trip.

Maybe that's the wrong approach, and maybe before I get my PPL I will change my mind. But right now, if all the above things happend, right or wrong, that's what I would do.

 

[VanDy]

Just go ahead and make me a liar, lol. My post had nothing to do with what you should or shouldn't do if your GPS's quit working. It was about gaining a different perspective on flying. A cub has 6 instruments, 7 if you count the stall indicator

you cant be lost if you are following along on the sectional where you are.

I like flying by looking out the window, and using my map. I will hook the iPad up to the Yoke, and turn off the plane in settings, just to have the sectional and not need to deal with paper (I have a paper chart with me as well).

The issue is not that I need GPS. The issue is I am lost going off course for an unknown about of time without knowing what I flew over, managed to get myself into some place where GPS doesn't work (often times, not a place you should be), lost power to Com1, Nav1, and my Panel GPS, have an instrument that is acting up (I realize I can now use the compase solely), and am figuring out what I should do.

I stated my decisions would be (in this order):

Climb and see if I can figure out where I am.
Check the radio frequencies to see if that helps (might not in the midwest, but does here in NH).
Call flight services, and see if they can find me.

If none of those work, I have two options. Fly around until I figure out where I am, or land my plane.

I chose land. That seems to be the wrong answer. I am still not convinced why.

I know durring my XC, that I have had to worry about helipads over hospitals, im the trees, that tend to pop out. I have been diverted by flight following because of jumpers. We have areas to avoid because of a high volume of glider traffic.

I would not want to inadvertently fly into any of that. I would find a small airport, fly over it above 3000 AGL (so I am not in there airspace if it's towered), look down and see if I see a tower, or traffic while I scan the radio, and if it's clear, land.

Once on the ground, I can take all the time in the world to plan the next part of my trip.

Maybe that's the wrong approach, and maybe before I get my PPL I will change my mind. But right now, if all the above things happend, right or wrong, that's what I would do.

 

[Mafoo]

you cant be lost if you are following along on the sectional where you are.

In the setup, he was under the hood for 30 minutes. He could not follow along. The primary error here, is the student did not look at his compas to reset the gauges. Thanks to this thread, I will never do that .

 

[wabower]

At this point you have absolutely no idea of what you will never do.

In the setup, he was under the hood for 30 minutes. He could not follow along. The primary error here, is the student did not look at his compas to reset the gauges. Thanks to this thread, I will never do that .

 

[Mafoo]

At this point you have absolutely no idea of what you will never do.

Yes I do. I will never bring up GPS on this forum again as a navigational aid.

 

[Everskyward]

If your flying, and all the sudden your 430 went out in your plane. Then you check your iPhone and iPad, and get nothing. Is all you are going to think is you lost GPS?

The reason those devices stopped working is of no concern?

Thinking about your airplane, if you lost signal on your onboard GPS, iPad and iPhone all at once, what would be the most logical cause? Do you think that cause would affect the VORs?

 

[Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe]

I don't believe in getting lost.

 

[Mafoo]

Thinking about your airplane, if you lost signal on your onboard GPS, iPad and iPhone all at once, what would be the most logical cause? Do you think that cause would affect the VORs?

This is where there might be some disconnect in what each of us understood by "out".

It's my understanding, the 430 went black. If the only Nav in the plane, was in the 430, then you also lost VOR.

Obviously if I felt I had a nav radio, that would be the second thing I do (after I climb for a better single, and look around).

I would also slow down.